In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Add dry ingredients and mix just until the mixture resembles course crumbs. Add chopped cherries and white chocolate, stirring until combined and a dough starts to form.

Divide dough between two 9" round baking pans - press mixture down firmly in each to form an even layer. Place into the oven and bake until the edges are light golden brown, about 20 to 24 minutes. Remove and place pans on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Immediately cut each pan into 12 wedges and allow to cool completely. Remove wedges from the pan.

For the drizzle

Drizzle chocolate over the tops of the wedges and allow shortbread to stand until the chocolate sets before serving.

3 comments:

Joe--These look wonderful! But I always have a problem getting the melted chocolate to "drizzle" attractively over my cookies. What's your secret? Do you melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler? What kind of shortening (veg. oil, butter?) do you add to the melted baking chips? And how do you get that perfect drizzly line of chocolate? Do you put the melted chocolate in a ZipLoc bag and cut the corner? Whenever I do that, the bag melts, and I end up with big, ugly globs of chocolate on my cookies. HELP!

Colleen - It really depends on what you are using. If you are using quality white chocolate (bars or taken from a big block), then you shouldn't need to add anything. I usually opt for the microwave for melting, only using 50% power and stirring every 30 seconds.

If you only want to use white baking chips, then you will need to add shortening (solid - I like Spectrum Organic). I suggest adding the solid shortening before you even begin melting the chips. Again, only using 50% power - white chocolate can over heat quickly.

As far as drizzling, it depends on the recipe - for these, I just used a fork and went to down. You can do a Ziploc bag if you like - if your bag is melting, then the chocolate is getting way to hot to begin with.